As I said this season is even a better indicator of where you are at in terms of the other 17 teams. It is clear to me that many in this site haven’t a clue what the rest do. They just look at their own back yard.
As a club we don’t get it.
Essendon** don’t get it.
Hawthorn don’t get it
Richmond do
Geelong do
Port do
WC do
I grant you culture and development helps and the gloss has been lost on Teague. He clearly has his favourite players.
To me the fundamental football issue is Recruiting and List Management.
SOS in five years has failed. Whose idea was it to fly Shiel around in a jet after the worst year in the club’s history. That shows a club internally that is out of touch with the realities of building success.
One of SOS s final tasks was to make sure Martin fitted in nicely to the club. Then his ego says @#$%&! youse all.Yet another superstar to bring the club back where it belongs. Just like Judd. Just like McGovern
Has Martin been that player. No. Our we any better with him in the team. No
Compare us from the second half of last year to this year. Have we improved. Only slightly.
We are harder to play against but our skill level is crap. That’s because of the players he recruited.
Players internally are overrated.
Top teams wouldn’t even entertain recruiting Plowman let alone hand out a 3 year contract.
Look at someone like Stewart from Geelongs who came to Geelong via the GFL at pick 40.
He plays in the same position as Plowman and is so much better yet SOS picks him at 3 as a junior then picks him again with a crap trade.
He got the job because he is a Carlton Legend and A mate of the President.
Jobs for the boys.
The biggest issue is the club itself.
It continues to ignore the fact that it still out of touch with the realities of on field success in the 21 st century.
How you fix that?
That’s the question I don’t have an answer for.
Maybe if we continue to be at best average for another 20 years something may give.
I don’t agree with many of Keogh’s points but what I do agree with is that we’ve missed a trick by not looking at the state leagues. Too often we’ve gone with washed up players from other clubs rather than state league picks. Shaw, Mullett, Sumner, Lamb, Phillips, O’Shea, Garlett etc rather than taking a genuine look at the state leagues. It was lazy recruitment. While we were doing this west coast went and got Ryan, Geelong got Kelly and Stewart. There are many more examples. I’d like to see us go through the WAFL and SANFL this year and identify the best mature small forward. Bring him into the club and get Eddie to develop him as a coach. Eddie is contracted for 2021 in an off field role and we should leverage his knowledge.